Prefabricated houses (industrial process)

Summary

The article focuses on the production of prefabricated houses, and on the innovation that this process can produce into the real estate market. In the past years, the most common method of building housing was the on-site method. The construction process starts with a project, which is developed by professionals and requires a certain amount of time to be completed. Once the final project is obtained and approved, is it possible to start with the actual building phase. The process required the set up of a construction site, which costs time and a large amount of money. In the next phase, the construction operated on site, is subject to various risks that can be generated by the site in which it operates, or from unpredictable events. The manpower cost is higher, because it must be highly specialized, and it has to adapt its knowledge depending on the site and the project to be implemented. Another significant economic impact on the buildings cost is generated by the transport of materials and the mechanical vehicles, needed in the construction process. With the advance of technology and the expansion of knowledge, many companies have finalized to the conclusion that the process of houses prefabrication is more efficient than the on-site construction. The various experiences developed over the years show that this increase in efficiency (both in economic and temporal terms) is moving the building business to new frontiers.

Portfolio Management of prefabricated houses

The idea is based on the Lecture which explain the meanings of: Project, program and Portfolio of BMW's car models. Starting from this concept and , this article explains how to apply the it, to the industry of prefabricated houses using the same market managing system of BMW models. This is an hard concept, both to understand and to improve, because is not common in the building industry. Despite the various complications that can arise, producing prefabricated houses with the same industrial process used in the automotive industry, this idea is an example of innovative vision.There are already numerous prefabricated projects on the market, carried out by important industries in the sector. These companies are responsible for providing the customer with a complete home, built according to needs and requests. Therefore, for each individual project, the company will have to adapt its production each time according to the guidelines received. This article explain the idea based on allowing companies to mass-produce their own prefabricated houses. Once completed a comprehensive and exhaustive portfolio, customers will have to adapt their requests, depending on the products provided by the company.

Advantages and Applications

provide guidance on how to use the tool, concept or theory and when it is applicable ???

Using prefabrication, companies can save large amounts of money by applying a mass production process avoiding to change the production methods for every single project. This methodology is atypical in the construction industry but it could rise various improvements. Modular homes have many advantages including:

Strong structure: modules that make up a building are more durable than those built traditionally. Prefabricated houses not only have to meet design requirements, but also withstand transport loads. Shorter construction time: a small modular house can be build in less than two months at the factory. The reason is automation, greater repeat-ability, greater teamwork. Assembly on the construction site is usually a few days. Higher quality of the building: very detailed projects can be designed. The increase in design time and costs, are amortized by the fact that with a single project can be replicated many modular homes in series. At the same time, is it possible to obtain modular houses which have every detail elaborated. Also a definitely higher health and safety level in the factory will increase quality of work. Implementation increase:Shorter investment time means lower costs for any investor. There is no need to rent social rooms for employees who work on site. Contractor’s benefits:modular homes also benefit contractor, stakeholder and their employees. Employees who build a house in a factory do not have to waste time on long travels to construction area. They do not have to work in cold or in rain conditions. They have more comfortable working conditions in factory. They can also spend more time with family and friends. As a result, companies obtain satisfied employees which means more productive employees. Price: modular homes are cheaper than traditional ones. The low cost is due to the fact that industrial processes, reduce significantly the costs of management related with the building site and all the other additional costs, correlated with on-site construction.

ScandiByg

"ScandiByg" is the danish market leader in the field of industrially manufactured construction, and we are specialists in the development, production and construction of modular buildings. Over 40 years of product development has ensured us an expertise that enables us to always advise and prepare solutions that match the individual customer's wishes and requirements for a building project. Our primary business areas are construction of housing, offices, institutions and research health facilities for professional private and public customers.

Limitations

The difficulties are related mainly with the production process. There are son many problems, most of them are related to logistics and transport of the final product. Furthermore, prefabricated houses are affected by some disadvantage, including: Lifespan The most common modular homes are timber frame constructed. It is a popular technology in Scandinavia and North America, but it is not widely used in central Europe. In Poland many people think, that brick houses are long-lasting and timber made houses not. Everything depends on the performance and manner of maintaining home, but the feelings are right. Read my post about the lifespan of building materials. I did an analysis base om manufacturers’ recommendations. Most brick manufacturers declare durability of their products for over 100 years. Manufacturers of wooden frame walls declare 50–100 years. Of course, there are wooden buildings that are hundreds years old, but they are properly maintained and protected from fire. Compare two abandoned houses — one wooden, the other brick. Which one will deteriorate quicker? The external walls of both houses could be protected by plaster and paints, and could be resistant to weather conditions. After a few years the windows in both houses were destroyed, and the roof would began to leak. After the next few years, in a brick house, water would destroy plaster. In a wooden house, water would not only destroy plaster, but also timber slab and walls would began to rot. Shorten lifespan does not apply to concrete modular homes. In this case we can talk about identical lifespan as in brick houses.

Heat accumulation. Timber houses are much lighter than masonry houses, so they do not keep warm and cool down quickly. This is a big drawback. Most central heating installations operate during the day and are switched off at night. In a modular timber house, we can’t afford it. In the event of any interruption in the heating operation, the house will get really cold. Prefabricated houses with timber frame technology will not accumulate heat gains from the day. If you plan to build a passive house, forget about building it in timber frame technology. Passive houses require high heat accumulation. From the other hand concrete modular homes have high accumulation value, but concrete itself has very high conductivity. This means requires very thick insulation to avoid high heat losses.

Fire resistance. The walls and ceilings of timber made modular houses have only 1 hour fire resistance. In brick houses, usually two hours. In addition, wood is a combustible material. Concrete and brick are non-flammable. The more we use non-flammable materials in the construction of our house, the lower the losses in the event of a fire.

Construction limitations of prefabricated houses. This is not a big drawback, because you can, for example, combine several modules together to form one large room. Sometimes when you plan to have bigger / higher rooms, it may be more cost-effective to make prefabricated walls only.

How is living in modular homes? Prefabricated modular houses have a lot in common with timber frame houses. Most reviews of prefabricated frame houses that I found on the internet are positive. People exchange such advantages as delivery time, quality, reasonable price, less risk of theft. I found a negative opinion of a person who thinks that modular homes lose value faster than brick houses … Considering lifespan of wooden houses compared to masonry, this is a good point. In my opinion modular houses soon can become very popular, but first manufacturers should deal with all the shortcomings that these houses have. The solution may be modular houses made of light weight concrete with very low thermal conductivity. This way modular house would have all positive parameters of house of brick, what is people really want.

Annotated bibliography

Provide key references (3-10), where a reader can find additional information on the subject. The article MUST make appropriate references to the and reference material provided in class – either incorporating it as a source, or critically discussing aspects that are missing from it but covered by this article. Summarize and outline the relevance of each reference to the topic (around 100 words per reference). The bibliography is not counted in the suggested 3000 word target length of the article.

Notes

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